


A Gesture of Trust

by Cerberusia



Category: Weiß Kreuz
Genre: Gen, Weiß Side B
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-31
Updated: 2015-07-31
Packaged: 2018-04-12 07:51:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4471241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerberusia/pseuds/Cerberusia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nagi has come to ask a favour of Schwarz's remaining members.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Gesture of Trust

**Author's Note:**

  * For [summerbutterfly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/summerbutterfly/gifts).



The hotel suite where Crawford and Schuldig are living is on the top floor, the concrete outside devoid of handholds. Who they think is going to levitate them down safely while their enemies fall to their deaths, Nagi couldn't say.

The door lock is electronic, as are so many things in Japan these days. Nagi touches it, concentrates on the lock's internal structure, and sends an electromagnetic pulse. The door light turns green.

They're both waiting for him inside. Craword is at the table with the newspaper; Schuldig is in another room, but Nagi knows he's there listening. The faint tickle of his mental snooping is obvious after having been exposed to it for years.

Crawford folds the New York Times into neat thirds as Nagi approaches, and sets it aside. The frames of his glasses are new.

"I see your new employer has kept you busy." When last they met, Nagi hadn't known that trick with the door.

"I'm here to negotiate a job on his behalf," Nagi says instead of explaining, and resists the urge to add _but you knew that already_ like he would have when he was a sulky teenager.

"I know," says Crawford mildly, and Nagi wishes he'd said it after all.

"And do you know what the job entails?" he asks instead, knowing perfectly well that Crawford doesn't.

"Of course not," says Crawford, not needled in the slightest. His German accent still retains a touch of the English _r_. "But I assume you're going to tell me."

"Takatori-sama needs a man eliminated." Nagi would ordinarily be too much of a professional to name his employer out loud while negotiating a hit for him, but sometimes a gesture of trust is needed. He lived and worked with Schwarz for four years and parted from them on good terms, but in many ways both Crawford and Schuldig are still ciphers to him.

"Wasn't assassination always your employer's forte?" Crawford raises one eyebrow. Nagi remembers practicing that move in the mirror in his early teens in imitation.

"Takatori-sama is too busy these days for wetwork." He doesn't add that Mamoru would no doubt prefer to be doing this job himself rather than delegating it. Something like a mental fingertip ghosts across the back of his mind; he prods it back.

"But there are plenty who aren't. What made you think of us?" He's giving Nagi the standard client spiel. Nagi stares at him pointedly. Crawford looks slightly amused. Nagi thinks he might be being teased.

"He needs some information recovered from the target first. This man is recountedly impervious to _ordinary_ methods of persuasion and has not committed the information to any physical or digital form that can be found." Nagi paused. "There is also evidence to suggest that this man is exceptionally _gifted_ at emotional manipulation."

Crawford says nothing, but the intrusive mental fingertip returns, this time more insistent. Nagi delivers the equivalent of a sharp rap on the wrist.

"I see you still haven't learnt manners," he says out loud. "If you want to know about it, get out here instead of lurking."

To his surprise, the door to his right opens, and Schuldig appears. Schuldig is rarely so accomodating. His hair is still long and red, even though he'd been idly talking about changing it shortly before Nagi left. He is also moving strangely slowly, which Nagi realises is because he's been injured.

Some strange emotion sweeps over Nagi for a second; then it vanishes, and Nagi feels obscurely embarrassed at its strength. Schuldig is a cockroach, virtually indestructible, and if getting knifed in the gut that one time didn't kill him, some kind of injury to his side is hardly going to leave him on his deathbed.

"Aw," says Schuldig, face not noticeably pained, "you _do_ care."

Nagi knocks away that fingertip - now more like a grasping hand - again and contrives to look supremely indifferent.

"What did you fuck up to get that?" he asks, trying to suggest that he doesn't really care about the answer.

"Schuldig learnt an important lesson about not underestimating the ingenuity of pyrokinetics," says Crawford, looking amused again.

"Did you know Rosenkreuz trained pyrokinetics to shoot fire out of their noses?" asks Schuldig. "Because I didn't. Oh, I knew that the better ones learnt how to do it without moving their hands - though not without moving their eyes - but fire from the nostrils was a new one on me." He tosses his hair, then looks like he regrets it.

"I'll bear it in mind," says Nagi drily, though it's the truth. Schuldig has always worked best with an audience to play off. Unfortunately, with his gift so crucial to the plan for this job, his injury throws quite a wrench in the works.

"What time frame is your employer hoping for?" Crawford is thinking the same thing.

"As soon as possible," Nagi replies. "The target may try to leave the country in the near future, probably for Switzerland." He does not add that all his contacts in Switzerland are either dead or alienated; Crawford and Schuldig can work that out for themselves.

He experiences that odd, particular tickle that indicates the use of psychic gifts in the vicinity. Crawford and Schuldig are having a conversation over his head again, like they used to back when he first started in Schwarz; only now he has no right to complain.

After a protracted moment of this, enhanced by Schuldig making pointed but incomprehensible expressions at Crawford, the tickle stops. Crawford pushes his glasses back up his nose - is it Nagi's imagination, or is the glass thicker than it was years ago? - and says,

"Please tell your employer that we are willing to take on the job at our usual fee."

How this is going to work, Nagi doesn't know - Schuldig regenerates rapidly, but not _that_ rapidly - but he nods anyway. They wouldn't take on the job if they weren't confident that they could deliver.

"Now," adds Crawford, "perhaps our plans might be enhanced by the name of the target, whose identity you have carefully elided throughout our discussion. I blame Schuldig and his penchant for dramatic revelations," he adds, off-hand, and Nagi sees Schuldig's eyebrows go up and his mouth open at the sheer, enormous hypocrisy of this statement - it's in a precognitive's nature to delight in his ability to drop dramatic bombshells into conversation and watch them explode.

So Nagi doesn't disappoint. He stands straight-backed where he can see both their faces as he pronounces:

"Takatori Saionji."


End file.
